Last night had to be the cheapest meal ever - the place was recommended in Em's bible (aka Lonely Planet!) but was a bit of a shack (to put it politely!!). We had a main meal and drinks for two pounds TOTAL, but I had to admit that I was still hungry afterwards so we elected to go back to our hotel later on in the evening for pudding - more of that later.He can't complain for less than a pound each!
Em's going to kill me for saying this so let's hope she doesn't proof read this entry before I publish - ha ha.....
I always proof read Mr Burgess!
.....Well she was wearing white linen trousers at the aforementioned shack and managed to spill some curry on them - DOH. It get's better though.... she then proceeded to douse her trousers in water to try and remove the stain and spilt the water on the plastic garden chairs that we were sitting on (I told you it was a classy place!!). Without going into too much detail Em started to panic as white linen trousers tend to go see-through when wet and the water on the chair had made it's way to Em's behind!!!....
White linen trousers ruined, although managed to get most of the curry out. Anyway, in India no-one will notice!
So we ended up going back to the hotel sooner than we expected and then we headed off to a show of authentic Indian dancing in Udaipur as we were killing time before our 10:20pm sleeper train to Udaipur. It wasn't a bad show but we smelt a rat when the finale was a woman carrying 10 china urns on her head whilst dancing and doing a range of 'stunts'. The pots were stuck together and were much lighter than real china so we think that they were probably made from papier-mache!!
So after this
Then it was time to leave and we opted to get a tuk-tuk to the train station. Em wasn't too happy as I didn't drive a hard enough bargain - OK, to be fair I didn't drive a bargain at all - but it was only two pounds. A rip off given the journey took five minutes at the most! we've let people off too lightly so far! We're going to start driving a hard bargain in Jaipur!
We get to the station and are be-friended by an Indian guy who is probably just trying out his English but we're both suspicious of his motives. The conversation wasn't exactly flowing as we could understand more than a word or two of his English - oh well, it was still better than our Indian!!
The train arrives and the carriage is in complete darkness - Oh My God! Luckily this was due to the fact that the guard hadn't turned on the power so minutes later we could see where we were sleeping in our cattle class carriage. I won't go in to too many details here as I'm sure Em has some stuff that she wants to get off her chest but I got about 20 minutes sleep on the 8 hour train journey and Em got 2.5 hours. What I will say is that calling it a Sleeper Train would definitely be a breach of Trade Descriptions Act back in the UK. The toilet was quite classy too - a hole (literally) in the floor of the carriage.
When we first got on the train, I actually thought it might be OK and very similar to the Chinese sleeper trains...the toilet is actually cleaner and less smelly than the Chinese ones!
At first we find we're the only ones for about 12 beds, so get optimistic it'll be a good journey!
We get onto our "sleepers" about midnight. It's quite chilly as we're near the door, so I've put a jumper on. I manage to fall asleep quite quickly as I'm quite tired. I do however wake up about 2.30am when someone has put the light on and people start chatting (loudly) for what seems like an eternity. From this point onwards I'm unable to get back to sleep. It's freezing (even with a jumper on), having to share my sleeper with my rucksack, and the continous racket of people chatting all ads to a no-sleep journey. I feel (and look) dreadful when I get up!
I have to laugh because Ian is handling this all so well...I feel a bit bad as I told Ian it would be a great experience and of course he'd get some sleep...
We arrived in Jaipur about 30 minutes late and decided to walk to the hotel which was only supposed to be 1km according to the Lonely Planet guide. What a walk that turned out to be - we were severely plagued by rickshaw and tuk-tuk drivers - I reckon we probably had 40-50 of them pestering us en-route. It's apparently a know scam - they offer to take you anywhere for 10 rupees and then proceed to take you to the hotel that they get commission from. This is the point where Ian gets cross and almost screams at one of the tuk-tuk drivers...I've never seen Ian cross, it was almost funny! However, just walking towards the police station scares them off!
We get to the hotel at 7:30am - well before the midday check-in time but have had an Indian breakfast (A stuffed chipati type item with curd and a coffee) and promised a room by 9:30am which is really good. We're both shattered but are determined to see some of the city before we collapse in a heap.
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